She is Plain and She is Beautiful
by Green Kneesocks
Summary: Serizawa knows that she can never be his. SerizawaXMob. Pining. Something I cooked up at two in the morning because I can't sleep. Fem!Mob because that's all I ever write.


She is plain and she is beautiful.

"….but don't let the water boil for too long or you'll lose the tea flavor." She was showing him, again, how to make a good cup of tea. It was hard, making tea. He always had someone to make it for him. His mother, in the beginning, and later on a parade of strangers because he had been following Suzuki around. People stepped over each other so serve Suzuki and his Ultimate Five a cup of tea.

"Then you pour it into a clean cup, and make sure that it's clean. You can't just rinse it because the flavor from the last time you had tea might linger." She was pouring him a cup of green tea, now. She was serving him a cup of tea. Her.

The most powerful being on Earth was serving him a cup of tea.

The most beautiful girl in the world was pouring him a cup of tea.

The sweetest, most caring, human being to ever live placed a cup of tea in his hand.

He face is impassive as always. Her eyes are locked onto him. Brown. A common shade of brown but so, so, so beautiful because it's **her** shade of brown. Everything about her is so, so, so beautiful. Plain but beautiful. Beautiful in her simplicity. Her simplicity hiding her complexity. Even this gesture of kindness is complex in it's simplicity. On the surface she's offering him a cup of tea but she's really offering up her kindness, her labor, her thoughtfulness…she offered it all up to him in a steaming porcelain cup.

"Do you like it?" she's still looking at him. Every part of her, her eyes mind and aura, are all watching him. _'Do you like it, Katsuya? Is it good? Do you like me? Should I like you?'_ she asks him. She asks him without saying a word. She's so close to him now that he can read her, the complexity in her flat stare. But it's not flat. She's never flat. She's never static, always dynamic. Even her aura moves. For his entire life he's been mired in magenta. She isn't mired in her aura, her aura circles around her like a hurricane. Bubblegum pink and cyan blue. Her.

"I-I love it. It's very good." He manages to choke out. It's so hard to talk to her. Suzuki never talked with him, always asked him, used him as a sounding board for whatever he needed to talk about. His dreams, his goals, mostly, but also his regrets. Those times were rare, when he'd talk about his regrets.

Did she have any regrets?

He had seen them, the worst moments of her life, but she had used them as times to grow. The time she exploded and hurt her brother, the time she spent in the false reality, he had seen it all and she had grown from it. Grown taller and stronger. She was strong, so strong, so very strong. Strong enough to stand up to Suzuki. Strong enough to stand up to herself. She wasn't afraid of it, the terrible power she was a vessel for, she controlled it. She stood up to it and she controlled it. She was so, so, so, so strong. Strong in the real way.

And he was so weak.

He was a weak man. He had just gone along with so much…Suzuki, isolating himself…and now this. This place he worked. Reigen offered him a job, a place to be each and every day, and he had taken it because he had nothing to do. He had nothing. He was nothing. At the age of twelve he had ceased to exist. At the age of twelve he had shut himself off from the world, a school bag and a pair of shoes by the front door being the only sign that the person called Serizawa Katsuya even existed. He was weak, so weak, so incredibly weak. She was strong, so strong, so incredibly strong.

And so very beautiful.

He saw her aura. He watched it. He watched her aura as he took a sip of the tea she had made just for him, well to show him how because he was so useless that he couldn't even make a cup of tea, and she was happy. She was happy that he had praised her. She liked to be praised. She liked the approval of others.

Her aura looked like that whenever Reigen praised her.

He was glad. Maybe, just maybe, he could be the same person to her as Reigen was. Someone who she cared for, who she wanted to be around, who she wanted to be with. He had seen that in what she had shown him, too. Her feelings, her true feelings for Reigen. He isn't sad, he isn't hurt. He knows that he has literally no chance with her. How could he? When she was so strong and so beautiful and so perfect. Everything about her was just so perfect. She was just so perfect.

"You can have the whole pot, I wasn't thirsty, Master Reigen just asked me to show you again while he was helping that client." She said. She refilled his tea cup even though he didn't ask and wasn't that thirsty. He didn't care, it didn't matter. The only thing that mattered was that she had made that tea for him, even if it was on Reigen's orders. How Reigen could order her to do anything was beyond him. She was so strong, stronger even then Suzuki, but she still listened to Reigen.

Because she loved him.

Because she cared for him.

Because she was not the sort of person who needed to stand above others even though she so easily could have.

She stood head and shoulders above everyone else but she hunched down. She shone to brightly, brighter than any star even the sun, but she shaded herself. She was the most humble, the most hardworking, the sweetest, the kindest, and the most beautiful girl that Serizawa has ever met in his life. Not that he has much experience with girls. Not that he has any experience with girls. When would he have ever? He locked himself away from the world at twelve. He spent all of his time following Suzuki around like a loyal lap dog. His only friends were the Ultimate Five and it was all guys. Guys and Minegishi but he wasn't fully sure what was up with Minegishi and didn't love them, anyway. Not in the way he would have to love someone to share himself with them.

Not in the way that he loved her.

And he did love her.

He loved her like the day was long. He loved her like the sky was vast and terrifying. He loved her like the world was loud and chaotic. He loved her. He loved her and he knew that she could never love him back. Why would she? She could have had literally anyone in the world. Why would anyone say no to her? He knew that he wouldn't. He knew that he couldn't. No matter what she wanted, not that he could ever see her wanting anything, he could not and would not deny her.

If she said _'Katsuya, kiss me'_ then he would kiss her even though he doesn't have the foggiest idea how.

If she said '_Katsuya, hold me'_ then he would hold her until the end of time or when she got sick of him, whichever came first. Probably the latter before the former.

If she said _'Katsuya, protect me'_ then he would lay down his life for her without a second thought.

If she said 'Katsuya, _go to bed with me'_ well then he'd…he'd…he needed to get off that train of thought. He needed to tear his ticket apart and throw himself on the tracks before the train departed from the station. He should not have been thinking about her like that. He actively tried not to.

It was hard.

Because she was so beautiful.

And sweet.

And kind.

And caring.

If she had just been beautiful then she could have faded into the background noise of his mind. He had seen so many women in his time and they were all beautiful but they faded. All were strangers to him. all would always have been strangers to him. She was not a stranger to him. He knew her. He knew her and that knowing was what had ingrained her in his mind.

Ingrained her every smile.

Ingrained her every touch. Every time her fingers would brush against his.

Ingrained her every look. The looks that other people called flat and disaffected.

Ingrained every word she had ever said to him, even if it was just _'good morning'_.

Ingrained the way her waist flared out into her hip.

Ingrained the way her chest rises and falls.

Stop it.

Don't look at her like that.

Just don't.

"Is something wrong? Your aura is being weird." She's at her desk, now, across from his. She's reading weekly shoujo. People falling in love. What would it take for her to-no. He knows that he has no chance. He knows that he shouldn't even think about her like this. She's her. She's so beautiful and strong and perfect and he's just…him.

"I'm fine. This really is very good tea." He says. She's thanks him. She thanks him and she goes back to reading. He watches her read. This, too, will be ingrained within his mind. Her long fingers clutching the page. The way the sun cuts across her pale skin. The way her eyes trace the page up and down over and over again. The way her long black hair hangs across her back. Some of it is tucked behind her ear. Her bangs almost touch her eyes but he can still seem them. The common shade of brown. The plain shade of brown.

She is plain and he is beautiful.

And she is not his.

But he is hers.


End file.
